Taking off! Jamie O’Brien Project: DAY ONE

Here is one of the shots from our first day of filming Jamie O’Brien on the North Shore of Hawaii. To view the 1080p High Res click here. (You DEFINITELY WANT TO DO THIS)

It’s been pretty fantastic to get a chance to know Jamie, his dad and crew – I really think that this project has wings and I think that it’s fitting to start off with this shot from our first day of shooting. It was shot with a Canon 5D MKII and a 24mm Tilt-Shift lens mounted to a radio controlled helicopter. Tabb Firchau is joining our motley crew with what is definitely one of the coolest toys that we have on hand – a radio controlled helicopter that can fly inches off the ground and through very, very small openings. Tabb specializes in video and still aerial footage and travels regularly across the globe. He just came back from a National Geographic assignment where he almost got eaten by a shark – but that’s a whole other story…

We’ve had an interesting few days here in Hawaii – the weather played havoc with a lot of our travel plans (it took more than 48 hours for our editor to make it out here from Toronto – he got to spend a night on the floor at O’Hare) and our crew’s lost baggage stories have been almost comical given their frequency… Meanwhile we’ve been tinkering with a lot of our new toys from a variety of companies – most of them prototypes. It’s been a steep learning curve at times and that’s to be expected when you’re the guinea pig trying to use multiple prototypes together for the first time – to give you an idea: soldering was involved! (I won’t say to who’s gear though…) But we’re finally up and running and in full swing. I’ll be posting the first behind the scenes video tomorrow some time (thought I’d give our editor Ryan Hughes a good night’s sleep before throwing him into the mix) and we’re planning on showing you every detail of how this and other shots are being produced.

The best part of this trip for me has been meeting Jamie. I was told not to expect the typical surfer in Jamie – and I came very open minded and eager to find out more about him. Jamie pretty much shatters any and every stereotype that anyone might have of a surfer. I won’t go into too much detail but I can tell you that I have quite a bit of interesting material to throw into this film. Jamie is pretty fascinating – smart, disciplined, passionate, and incredibly focused – he’s a pro. He’s also patient and a total pleasure to work with. I hope he can say half as much about us.

Time to get some rest – we’ll post the first behind the scenes video in 24 hours.

Wow! This is beautiful. I really look foward to this project! I love surfing and I love photography/cinematography. You are lucky to get the chance to work on that movie
I just subscribed to you feed… I know this movie is gonna be awesome!!!

Awesome is the word to use here. That looks great. I’m really excited to see how this is going to evolve over the next weeks. Thanks again for all your hard work Vincent! Really appreciated. I can’t get enough of seeing your videos, be that actual videos or behind the scenes footage.

Vincent, you must be kidding. I asked myself how you did this. first seconds: it’s a crane, oh, thats a looong crane, this can’t be a crane, it’s a helicopter. It can’t be a helicopter, where’s the wind?! haha, pretty amazing! You must have a great pilot for that little toy

One question though: How did you do the focussing? It looks like it changed 2-3 times …

If you’re going to dangle “1080p high res” clips in front of us, you DEFINITELY WANT TO give us real 1080p files (not the 720p that you’ve uploaded here). And c’mon, it’s only 3mbps. That’s less than half the resolution & over ten times the compression of the original footage. This particular clip is exactly the type of subject (solid color, fine textures) where heavy-handed h.264 compression KILLS the image quality. Smugmug’s bandwidth can handle files bigger than 13 megs, can’t they?

Vincent,
I just started viewing your site a few weeks ago when i received
my 5dmkll and saw reverie. You have inspired me with not only your creative prowess and technical abilities but in the nature of
how willing you are to share. Thank you and keep up the good work!

Hi Vincent,
I like the composition and color work a lot in this shot. But there seems to be quite a bit of clipped highlights in the sun/sky. Is that a limitation of the dynamic range you could get out of the 5D MKII given the exposure that you wanted for your foreground? If so, can some of the highlights be recovered in post the way you can with RAW formats, or is it impossible on the 5D MKII?
Or maybe you were fine with some clipped highlights as a cinematographic decision…?

Very nice work Vincent…I have been waiting to see someone use RC tek to cover surfing. A few years ago I made a waterproof RC photoplane that can be launched and retrieved by boat, I mucked around with some surf and wildlife shots and the results were amazing for how little time I actually spent shooting with the rig. The helicopter sounds really cool…is it powerful enough to carry the 5D ? Best of luck with your project, Simon. boomafilm.com